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prophetik music

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Everything posted by prophetik music

  1. memories in green is such a timeless track. some sfx and detuned pads before we get the intiial beat at 0:16. snares feel a touch loud here even considering where they're coming from (ie. the shinra track), and the long tail is covering what else is going on. it's a super wet sound especially in the backing pads. 0:55 we get some saxccents, and we finally get some melodic content at 1:39. the subtle gated synths here are so good, and i love the heavily filtered pingpong echoes. 2:22 really feels like a big shift despite there not being a ton of changes. the choir and addition of other sustained content fills out the soundscape a lot more here. the ending is sudden - i felt it to be too much so, the track just kind of ends. the interweaving of these two tracks is excellent. my only complaint is the ending, which it certainly isn't enough for me to say no just for that. YES
  2. name means roughly "on the other side of the mirror". loved the bass in the intro, although i wish it was clearer. keys at 0:40 were nice. whole opening reminded me of Evanescence's second album a bit. it really gets going at 1:00, with 1:20's aggressive in-your-face action being really fun. drum fills were really solid. there is indeed a render glitch at 2:07.5 or so. 2:37 was really gripping to me, nice work with the ascending chord work there. 3:15 is a 'break', for probably the first time in the track, and it's needed by that point. 3:44 kicks it back up and it's real mean for a bit before the keys come back for a little while. at 4:23 we get the last big blow for the last 40s or so, and it's done. 4:51 has another render blat. there's a lot of silence to trim from the render, both at the beginning and end. this is an aggressive, intense take on a great original track. nice work! i love how in-your-face it is throughout without ever being overwhelming. YES
  3. what a unique submission email. i'll say that ori lost in the storm is IMO such an iconic track for this game, just love it. intro is beautiful. lots of playing with duple vs. triple, excellently handled dynamics and soundscape. the violin part was pretty but a bit high-heavy, which caused it to sound a little thin. i'd have preferred to hear more low/mid in the EQing of that instrument. 0:59 brings in more consistent drums, and the soundscape shifts to accommodate the cello is well-handled. love the violin pizz in this section. i think the cello could have definitely been much louder through this however. 1:46's change again has the leads a little quiet, but the scoring here sounds great and is appropriately epic. the flute and bells at 2:02 are great. there's some soloing and the a beautiful duet at 2:35. one last big crescendo, and it's done. this sounds great! the orchestral parts are really subdued, more than i'd have expected based on the description, but it lets the live instruments carry the track. enjoyable listen. YES
  4. ok, a little different! the lush string pads (which are obv not intended to be realistic, they're a keyboard) swelling in the intro is a nice touch. drums at 0:19 are super present with a lot of room tone, which is a neat contrast to the tone of the bass and trumpet. the track feels really in touch with the DS roots in the instrumentation and style. we get a break at 0:59 or so with some swells that stays pretty small for a while until after the 2:00 mark. the continued contrast of textures is just great, lots of different little ensembles within the overall work. there's some copy at 2:30 or so, but it doesn't last too long. this part is particularly loud, and there definitely is some clipping in here that's being hidden by your limiter in post. we get one more break at 3:14 and then it's a short romp to the ending. this is really fun overall. i certainly wouldn't complain if you went through the entire track and turned everything down 10% to avoid the clipping, but the arrangement is just stellar and carries the few mastering mistakes over the bar, i think. tons of clever integration of the source into a variety of timbres is a great way to get posted YES edit 11/7: no change to my vote here.
  5. very clanky piano for the intro, doing lots of block chords. synth lead that comes in is pretty bland and not particularly pleasant to listen to. the left hand of the initial piano really keeps hammering for a while, and it is not a great sound - it crushes most of what else is going on when it hits, not that there's much there. this goes on for almost two minutes and i'm already really tired of the theme. the soaring elements of the melodic line that are so interesting are really flattened by the synth choices and the hammering of the keys. we get a very significant shift in style with rhythmic synths and percussion coming in at about 1:46. the drums are pretty loud initially, but fit in later - consider taking some time to volumize what you're playing so that the fills aren't huge and the initial groove isn't so loud compared to what's going on in the melody line. i'm at three minutes and each time the first loop of melodic material ends, it starts over again immediately following the next measure. there's no breaks to the material or pauses or dynamic contrast added, just an immediate shift between the A and B material. consider giving your listeners some breaks between what you're saying so that they can absorb it before diving into the same melodic content in the same instruments at the same tempo and the same dynamic level for the fifth time when we haven't even gotten halfway through the piece. we get some age of fables at 3:47, which is a nice shift. again there's no hesitation before diving into the next set of themes, which i really do think is a mistake. this section uses similar percussion, dynamics, and lead tones as the first section, which also is a concern given that we're 4-5 minutes into the track and it's been a lot of the same. my ears are certainly getting tired of the same thing for such a long time, and there's another two minutes in the track. around the 6:00 mark, you start to reduce the textural elements playing, which is a good choice to allow the track to naturally shift somewhere else from an instrumentation perspective. unfortunately, the next minute or so is just the same progression over and over with little difference, and then suddenly it shifts to an ending that resolves a 7+ minute piece in about six seconds. and it's done. i would strongly encourage you to consider cutting half of the piece's repetition out. this is, maybe, a 3.5-4 minute pat of butter scraped over 7+ minutes of bread. there simply isn't enough unique content here to last 7 minutes without repeating yourself ad nauseum, which is what you've done. i'd also ask you to consider doubling - truly, doubling - the number of unique synths, percs, whatever that you're using throughout. the amount of same-ness is not a positive, and my ear was tired of the same six synths by the three minute mark. lastly, re-evaluate the song structure and identify more clear areas to provide breaks - both in the dynamic content, and in the melodic content. the track is roughly the same volume throughout after the intro right now and that's not a great song structure. beyond that, it's worth it to have breaks in the melodic material that you're continually throwing at the listener. rather than repeating each melody line ten times in a song, use it maybe three or four times total, and make those three or four times more awesome - make the listener want to re-listen to the entire song rather than just hearing it once and saying "that's good for a while". reducing the overall usage will make the track much more approachable and listenable. NO
  6. neat idea shifting the engine purr into the initial synth line. the track really starts around 0:33 and features some (super hot) engine sfx throughout the first ten seconds at least. i don't hear the issue with the lead being hard to hear at 0:33 at all, same at 1:10. the faster tempo really works for this melodic material too since it's so fitting for the theme of the game. there's a 'break' at 1:39, and certainly what source material is being represented here is quieter, and doesn't speak much at the beginning. the energy kicks at 2:05 and it goes pretty good to the end when we get more engine sfx. this has a ton of energy! i don't think that the quieter leads at 1:39 are enough to sink it. it sounds great overall and i especially liked the synth guitar lead. nice work. YES
  7. fun idea for a remix. the fade-in wasn't my favorite and the initial piano is indeed blocky (try reducing the sustain on faster passages to get a cleaner and tighter sound). flute sounds fantastic, the off-beat stuff at 0:47 is great. some nice drum fills around the 1:10 mark. the original's melody isn't particularly over-memorable but you do a nice job of picking up what makes it unique and relaying it. i certainly wasn't a huge fan of the fadeout with all the clear rhythmic content you had going on. the overblown sections sound fine. i think at least in the later one there's some vocal content in the flute tone or at least some flutter, which is why it sounds a little weird. it's just because the sound comes out of the instrument differently when you don't focus the airstream at the tone hole the same way. this is a neat idea, subpar start/end aside. great playing. YES
  8. neat original, haven't ever heard it. the opening chords are neat, but the artificial cut on the tremolo strings is an immediate turnoff. the bells at 0:35 do indeed have a tone of attack bass tone, and they're also heavily in the right ear. there's some neat stuff they're saying but there are indeed some notes that don't appear to be represented in the adjacent chords in the choir. the flute does a similar thing. the chords under it are at least initially in a minor (with some very interesting borrowed tones later that i don't believe are 100% intentional), and the flute melody is in what sounds like B major. a guitar (?) comes in at 1:35, and is also very clicky on the attack. after some more reserved elements noodle, there's a very treble-heavy bell doing stuff at 2:17 that's just not clearly in any key again. it's also about two octaves above everything else so it's totally unrelated to anything happening around it. there is a lot going on here that is problematic. the start is simply that everything's panned so heavily - this leads to a difficult-to-listen-to mix on headphones especially. the instruments themselves don't appear to be working together, but rather doing their own thing throughout pretty much across the board. most of them also have heavy bass thumps in their attacks, which leads to a clicky, punchy tone that is not pleasing. beyond that, most of them don't appear to be playing music in the same key, which leads to it overall being pretty incoherent. i didn't get much melodic material from the original at all in this. i think this needs the drawing board. identify more clearly how you're going to relay the original's melodic and harmonic components that you're hoping to show, and craft a soundscape around that material that is both key-specific and intentional with your instrument choices. right now this is pretty far from the bar. NO
  9. is it even an OCR album if there isn't a spaghetti western track in it? i mean, the genre is in the video talking about the site. jaw harp intro with whistling sounds great. 0:35 is where it really starts to go, and MW's right in that most of the texture feels very high in the frequency range. the guitar especially is quite shrill there. when the strings come in at 1:12, the freq range fills in better, but it's still high-heavy. the instrumentation however is very good - trumpet leads, acoustic guitar and strings in the back, highly percussive vocals, flutter-tongued whistle...it's very thematic. there's a break at 2:17 that is very dramatic initially and then quickly transitions into a tongue-in-cheek hayseed section for a bit. the string pads under it sound and feel great when they come in. 3:01 starts a pretty epic build from an instrumentation and energy standpoint. banjo picking is excellent in here. this trucks (trains?) through the melodic content on a few lead instruments before really settling into trumpet and friends. there's a final high note at 4:30 and it settles down to the ending. what a neat idea for a track. i do think overall it's mixed with very little low content, and i think that's a negative that holds the track back. however, the charismatic approach really carries it - the instrumentation choices are just perfect for the style, and there's a lot of mileage from a fairly repetitive source in this very creative arrangement. excellent job. YES
  10. interesting piano tone to start the track. drums sound great, bass is a little dense but the sax tone and mallet tones are on point. outside the bass tone, this would sound at home on an early hancock album before he found synthesizers. the sax is maybe a little loud throughout but that'd be pretty much it. the soloing gets really cooking at 0:46 when the bass goes for a walk. it's pretty much a straight blow until maybe 1:55, and then a bit more soloing from 2:06 through the ending. cutting the instruments without even a tail is really surprising too, i don't understand any case where that'd be ideal. you've got about 12s in the intro, 23s with the sax and vibes carrying it before the solos start, 23s at 1:09 where the sax and mallets are carrying the melody, and 12s at the end before it goes back to soloing. i don't hear the rest that you called out. that's not quite half but it's close enough. i'll note that this is right on the border of not having enough source for me. this is a neat idea and it's performed well. the drums especially really come through as a highlight for me. nice work to everyone involved. YES
  11. classic original, highly repetitive. initial arp in the 'piano', and some choir comes in after a little while. we get a snare and other synth at 0:56, and there's a light chime in there too. 1:25 there's a time change, and what probably is an organ in the lower reaches. at this point the 'piano's been trucking for the entire song, and it's showing no letting up. by about the 2 minute mark, we continue to noodle through the progression with the same instrumentation, and at 2:26 it gets even slower and lower. this is plodding at this point, and it's not had notable development of the original chord structure, 'melodic' line, or instrumentation. at 3:35 the organ cuts after a few run-throughs of the chord progression, and the piano carries us out for the rest of the track. the lack of varied instrumentation or a progression of the interpretation really hurts this track. as it gets lower and slower, it doesn't hold interest, and so just gets boring. the highly repetitive chord structure and lack of a true melody to grab onto plays into that. this needs some significant additions to get it over the finish line. right now it's boring =( which is never something you want to hear about a song. find a way to draw in and hold the listener's ear, and that'll really get it going in the right direction. NO
  12. lots of space in the intro. each layer, like MW said, is subsequently more distorted and mean, and the eventual melodic content's mostly clean sound is a real neat contrast to that. SoW has a very unique song structure in my mind due to how much space is in the original, so the heavily percussive drums and stuttering synths with tons of space in them really fit the song well. there's a break around 1:40 that features some really neat sound design. 2:08 brings back in some more sfx in a rising action only to hit a huge shift at 2:17, which was totally unexpected and a neat idea. there continues to be a variety of textural changes, until the original melodic lead and bass come back in at 2:55. we get one runthrough of the melodic material at 3:09, and then the track is over. the ending is abrupt certainly, but given the variety of abrupt changes throughout the track, not entirely unexpected. this is a pretty neat idea for a track overall. the industrial elements pair really well with an original that demands silence in a retelling, and the abrupt changes and glitches that occur in the overall timbre in turn are influenced by the game's story which is neat. i think this is pretty good. YES
  13. 2015 is eight years ago? say it ain't so =( big opening with loads of sweepy pads, but we get a kick at 0:33 and some more direction soon after. this is a loud mix! 0:49 is really where the progression starts to build, and there's a particularly neat arp that comes in at 1:19 as a lead/counterlead part. i'll agree that the melody is a bit buried, but it's certainly there if you know what to listen for. we get a break at 1:59 and it's well-timed. fun use of sfx in the false build. the melodic material is back in full bore at 2:29 and it's a great sound, with a variety of octaves used to convey the melody alongside a great groove. there's a runthrough of the B material, and a quick recap of the A melodic content and we're done. this is great. like kris said, there's lot's of ear candy in this one. really neat ideas. i didn't find any of the synths particularly sharp, and i felt that the big, loud mastering didn't overpower the lead parts completely. YES
  14. thank you for the detailed timings around the source. slow burn intro. the violins initially are pretty late in their attack but sound better as they get louder. 0:54 brings in some really rich-sounding bells, i love that sample. there's a nice orchestral crescendo going into 1:25 and some simple synth work that does a lot to build the intensity of the melodic material in the horns and celli. 2:38's chord shift was just great. 2:46's aleatoric elements were really interesting. very delicate. there's a beat and some bass that come in at 3:01, and in general the drums feel like they're lacking punch compared to some of the more aggressive synths we've heard so far in the track. there's a big build into 4:05, and again the drums feel very neutered compared to the rest of the instrumentation going on here. there's definitely some artifacts at about 4:35 or so, mostly from low-end stuff that probably could be limited a bit more in that specific section. after that, there's a (probably too-quiet) outro in the piano. this is really great overall i think. there's some specific elements that, had they been handled differently, could have really turned the arrangement up to 11, but the approach and melodic material handling is excellent and for the most part your mastering is clear and allows everything to speak. YES
  15. intro is really patient, slowing layering in some nicely-handled hand percussion alongside the santur when it comes in. the synth arp in the background simulating the traditional repeated sixteenth notes on the santur is a nice touch, as is the Prelude arp that you brought in. the bansuri at1:15 sounds pretty traditionally handled as well, with the little flips here and there. the instrumentation really comes together to make a great whole here. at 1:47 there's a falloff into some very quiet exploration in the bansuri. this highlights one of my only real concerns with the piece, which is that the dynamic range is pretty huge. it could have used some more compression to bring this up a bit in volume without sacrificing the delicate timbres that you've got displayed here. 2:40 brings in the Beyond the Wall theme, and allows some room for exploring that very simple theme. we get a recap of the original melodic material around 3:35 or so, and at this point the backing instrumentation hasn't really changed at all for 4 minutes, and this section at 3:35 is very similar if not copied from earlier in the track. it's not until you layer the melodic material with harmonies at 4:37 that it's really unique. overall, i think the word for the approach is 'measured'. there's no significant highs in dynamics, and your approach takes its time. i would have preferred less overall dynamic variation - the part at 1:47 is just too quiet - and 3:35 was a cut and paste from earlier in the track, but what's here sounds great and is a great adaptation of two themes in a thoughtful way. nice work. YES
  16. initial hit sounds great. really channels the post-grunge alt sound that was pretty popular in the early aughts. there's a piano tone in the first fifteen seconds or so that's high-pitched and irritating, but i don't hear it after that so that's no big deal. i thought the strummed sustains in the lead guitar in the B section were wheedly too, some other ideas for how to sustain those (or put in some other licks there) might be a good idea. i liked the octaves that you do the second time around a lot better. this unfortunately doesn't really feature any transformational arrangement. it's the original's chords and melody in guitar and bass and drums, with some extra countermelodic content in the last third of the piece. we don't do covers here, but this is certainly a capable one! for this to pass, there'd need to be more attention to arrangement to mix it up more. NO
  17. some filtro to start it, but the vibe at 0:15 is immaculate. i really liked the rhodes at 1:05, and the handoff there to let the EP take the lead was nicely handled. the keys solo through 1:45 was nice but the drums (specifically the crash) was a bit bright to hear it. the recap at 2:07 was nicely done - similar to before, but some nice personalizations to mix it up. the lush pad work at 3:00 or so is really nice, and a fun change from the earlier instrumentation. 3:33 has the menu theme start up, and it's again well-realized into the style. the vocoder stuff was fun if unintelligible. the arpeggiated section at 4:52 was just so good, what a great idea there. the melodic material comes back around 5:02 and it's just got such verve, i love the way that you've arranged this section. there's an outro at 5:38 and that's a wrap. this is a great track and shows a ton of creativity in adapting the tracks to the style. nice work. YES
  18. really patient intro. beat starts at 0:55 and really does have that squelchy late 60s sound (the sousaphone is such an eclectic choice, lol). this is actually really impressive in how you replicated some of the more traditional soundscapes with modern tools and mics. 2:27 is a shift from duple to triple, and does a nice job replicating the adjacent section in the original. there's a few dissonances i'd say are unintentional at 2:56 or so. the heavy, plodding beat at 3:05 is very fitting for the tyrano. 3:29 we get the big blow. this sounds great through here, and the guitar work feels very authentic to the style. the ending is kind of funny in how different it is. this is a fun take on a track that doesn't get enough love. nice work. YES
  19. significant source usage. this'll be interesting. after some sfx intro work, there's a bit of the fithos theme heavily effected and pitch-tweaked. the sweeping distortion effects here are really neat as is the bitcrushing (?) on the tail of some phrases. the following section, of The Extreme, has some neat elements of macro vs. micro beats going on, although i couldn't understand a word of the vox part (this might be me, i'm terrible at understanding words in song). the section from 2:15 really has an impending-doom feel to it, it's a really neat vibe. 3:11 is a significant shift - it's much faster, and the mixing here is nowhere near as clear as the earlier sections were. notably, the booming kick has a lot of sub-40hz content that takes up the aural space and tires out my ear. the build however is great into 3:45, and the effecting on the lead is really fun. this section is a real toe-tapper and drives towards a half-time beat at about 4:17. this section was a bit heavy in the right ear. there's a true break at 5:03, with some dueling harpsichords, and we get right back on the 'train' at 5:12 for a little over a minute. the building tension into the clocktower sfx at about 6:20 was truly amazing - so many different concepts being layered in. and then at 6:40 we get another total tonal shift. this felt very sudden and completely detatched from the previous six minutes. the heavily effected vox parts were well-handled, and it's a neat idea, i just felt it was very separate from the rest of the track. the remix kind of starts back up around 7:44, and it feels again like the earlier sections with the heavy kick and driving energy. 8:27 or so feels like an ending is starting - there continues to be a lot of exploratory synth usage (and a wrench?) but it definitely feels like we're nearing the peak. there's chiptune stuff, there's ps1-sounding synths, and then we get what feels like some fadeout elements for an ending that hearkens back to the beginning. i didn't care for the last minute plus as i felt it built up but got too scattered for its own good, and then there was no real capstone to finish it off. it kind of keeps wandering through styles until there's the sfx outro and choir shout-out. i think - even if it wans't some big epic slamming blow - a more cohesive ending before the last maybe 25 seconds or so that wrapped the themes in one that was familiar to us by the time we got there would have felt more terminal. it felt like we were going there around 9:20, but it just tailed off instead of going for it. i feel like the ending was a real letdown, the rap section was pretty disjointed from the rest of the track, and there's certainly nitpicks in the mastering throughout as is expected for a track of this length. but the track as a whole is an achievement, and the overall experience is really something special. this is well above the bar. YES
  20. this probably needs a new title. the variety of synths in the opening alone is just great. tons of creative noisy stuff going on all at the same time. 0:49's where it really gets going, and there's a ton of craziness going on in. i really appreciate the commitment to just getting dirty throughout. 1:40's shift is great - getting an extreme-g vibe from that hat sound, and the continued energy through this section is great. 2:15 does repeat the synths from earlier, but with different drums, so i don't mind the recap. if i am going to complain about any of this, it's that it really should have an actual ending instead of a hard cut like it has. the volume of repeated material is also worth a note - while i don't mind mostly repeated stuff if there's an attempt to mix it up, there are a few borderline elements in the last third of this piece, and the remixer's other track had a lot more by volume as well. that said, this is a fun take with a ton of attention paid to unique synth work and a good amount of energy. nice work. YES
  21. this is a fun approach. short remixes need to use their time extremely effectively, as the other judges have noted - repetition or extended deviations from the material need to be carefully weighed. the track feels like it needs another minute overall, if only to balance the (big and pretty fun) bridge against the repetitions of the melodic material. i hear (roughly): A B A C A, with C being like half the piece. there's a ton of room to bring back the B material in the end, at least, especially if you're willing to branch out more and change the vibe up more around that section. A and B already have a notably different feel to them, so leaning into that would be a great compositional method. from a mastering perspective, i think the track sounds great, and there's good clarity between all the stuff going on simultaneously. your synth choices are fun and solid, so it's more a matter of making sure there's enough actual material that's not repeated. i'd love to hear this one back again with more body to it and a real ending. NO
  22. neat idea. thank you for a detailed writeup. the initial drumbeat and groove really does have a Snarky Puppy feel to it, nice work there. i'm honestly surprised that the lead at 0:25 is FH and not trumpet. i didn't have an issue with the synth - the tone is straight off of We Like It Here, even the dryness next to the other instruments (although it could have used a touch more room verb on it). same with the one at 2:06. the chord progression at 1:40 is a neat idea. i very much liked the transition to this with the back-and-forth solos. the switch to 7/8 at 2:49 caught me off guard but again, i really liked the idea. the prog influences on all of this is super clear. 3:13 is a recap of the FH section from the beginning with some new synths added in. 3:32's subsequent 4/4 runthrough of the melodic material is a great way to prep for the shuffling outro and subsequent piano noodles to finish it. arrangement is great. you really nailed the Snarky Puppy style of melodic ensemble writing with a clear direction and a lot of variety in texture. the track sounds excellent throughout as well - the drier tone is in general an SP staple, and it's hard to do imo since it's so easy to just make it a desert, so excellent job getting that balance handled well. what a great track. bravo. YES
  23. the intro guitar tone is just perfect. what a great sound, simple but effective. the beat comes in at 0:15 and is pretty snappy, and i noticed here that the track isn't particularly balanced from section to section (would love to hear some more compression). the melodic material is well-played by the guitar, there's a wrong note in the chord at 0:46 in the middle of the background, putting a minor third next to a major from the sound of it. the break at 1:21 or so with the ep is again an excellent instrumentation selection, fitting the style very well. 1:55 is a bit of stylistic change, and there's a few funky notes from the altered chords used there. after this it kind of noodles through some melodic material and then it's done. this is pretty simple overall, but the simplicity is a feature, not a bug. it's a nice approach to an underrepresented game. YES
  24. yeah, i agree that the piano sample is not great, and it's not used great (lots of slammed velocities, little room sound). the thing that got me throughout the arrangement is how indeed the track does feel very cohesive despite the constant changes between themes. the ensemble feels great throughout, and i never feel like there's a transition where it was awkwardly shoved in there. it feels like a prog track with the constantly shifting textures and how you constantly are passing off the lead around a small cast of characters, a critical element in making it feel all like the same track. any complaints are nits, like the synth solo at 5:38 having too much verb/delay and too long of a tail, or the common intonation issues in the horns (which were particularly bad in the last minute or so of them playing). really impressive arrangement here. love it from start to finish. YES
  25. intro swell contains the piano loop with loads of rich string pads and bells, and some really luscious writing in the winds. it really feels like the music you'd hear in a BBC documentary talking about the sun rising on a spring morning, dew dripping off the trees and birds chirping and david attenborough wheezing his way through a soliloquy about a rare parrot or something. the suspension at 1:00 and subsequent resolution and root chord with the flutter in the flute at 1:04 is truly special. 1:53's the one part where i can really see significant shifts in the piano's writing, and it's probably my favorite part of the entire piece. it's very subtle and measured, and better for it. 2:25's choir is really nice. a simple way to reinforce the piano melody. the track, patient as it is, takes about a half-minute to truly end after it kind of finishes what it was going for, and we hear poor david walking away as the track fades out. what a patient and expansive arrangement, realized flawlessly and mastered very cleanly. superior work. YES
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